“GOOD-BYE FOR EVER! GOOD-BYE, GOOD-BYE!”
It was about eight o’clock in the morning, and Mrs. Brande, as she put
the last touches to her toilet, was certain that she heard a man’s (a
gentleman’s) voice in the verandah. Pelham was from home; who could
it be at such an hour? Some one come for “Chotah Hazree.” Well, Honor
would look after him! Ten minutes later she came out, flourishing in
her hand a freshly unfolded handkerchief, and gave quite a little gasp
of pleasure as she recognized Mark Jervis. He was leaning against the
stone pillar of the verandah talking earnestly to her niece, and his
pony was waiting at the steps.
“Why, I do declare, this _is_ a pleasure,” she cried; “a sight for sore
eyes! Where have you been hiding yourself this ten days?”
But somehow her exuberant delight was instantly quenched, when she
caught sight of the faces of the two young people. Mark looked
strangely agitated and as if he had but just recovered from some all
but mortal sickness. Honor, her bright, happy Honor, was as smileless
and white as death.
“I have come,” said Jervis, advancing with an outstretched hand, “to
say good-bye.”
“Dear, dear, dear!” waving away his salute. “You have not said, ‘How do
you do?’ to me yet!”
“No, I’m afraid I am very stupid to-day. I don’t intend to have any
secrets from you, Mrs. Brande.”
“Oh, I know your secret, so does every one,” nodding. “I think you
might have given us a _little_ hint.”
“You mean about the money; and I would have done so only my hands were
tied.”
“And your cunning cousin never let on!”
“No, but that is not what I have to tell you----”
“Then come into the drawing-room and sit down like a Christian, and
send the pony round.”
He shook his head emphatically as he said, “I can only wait a short
time. I am going off now to a place forty miles away, to live with my
father.”
“Your father!” she repeated, incredulously.
“Yes, my uncle adopted me when my father married again. My father is
Major Jervis, he has lived in these hills for some years. I never knew
his whereabouts until recently. The night of the ball he sent for me,
he believed that he was dying, and I went off at once--I found him very
ill, and quite alone and desolate. I am going to keep him company for
the rest of his days. You see, he has no one in the world belonging to
him but me.”
“Well, I declare!” said Mrs. Brande, after a pause. “It is awfully good
of you, that I will say; but if you are your uncle’s adopted son, how
will _he_ take it?”
“Badly, I am afraid, but I cannot be in two places; my uncle has a
wife, and heaps of friends, and money, and first rate health.”
“Make your father come in to Shirani; we will put him up; and why not
get him to go home?”
“It would be of no use to urge him to either step; he is a fixture in
his present home for as long as he lives.”
“Well, at least you will often come in and see us--_you_ are not a
fixture!” she urged eagerly.
“Mrs. Brande, you are very good--I shall never forget all your kindness
to me--but as far as I can see, I shall never come back to Shirani
again. My father could not spare me, for one thing--and for another,”
and there was a ring of passion in his voice as he added, “I could not
endure it. Think of me, as companion to an invalid, with every moment
occupied,” and here his words sounded a little husky. “Do not tempt me.”
“Oh, Mark, my boy, I am so sorry!” she exclaimed; “to think that this
is good-bye--that we shall not see you again.”
Mark told himself that this so-called underbred, vulgar woman had
accepted the news of the shattering of her niece’s fortune in a manner
that no duchess could have surpassed. Apparently it was not the loss of
position, of thousands a year, that had cut her up--she had stood that
with marvellous stoicism--it was the loss of Mark himself!
“You know, of course, what my hopes were,” he said, glancing towards
Honor, who stood at the far end of the verandah, gazing out at what--?
“There is an end to them now. Some explanation is due to you and Mr.
Brande, and I will write. She need never know _all_. Let people in
Shirani suppose what they please, as long as it does not reflect on
_her_. Our engagement was never given out--it was a mere matter of
hours. My father is peculiar, he wishes to keep his name and existence
a secret--you will understand all--later on.”
“I remember him well,” said Mrs. Brande; “such a handsome fellow,
and so fond of society, and so popular. His second wife--I have seen
her--a dark person, with----Well, she is dead; let her rest. Oh, Mark,
I suppose this must be. But is there not some way out of this trouble,
some loophole, some alternative? Surely you would not sacrifice my poor
Honor and yourself for nothing?” And her still pretty blue eyes swam in
tears.
“No, Mrs. Brande, you may rely on me in that. To hold to Honor--I give
up Honor. May she come as far as the gate with me?”
“Yes, she may, to be sure.”
“And give me something--you have no photograph, I know--just to show
that we part friends?” And he looked at her appealingly.
Mrs. Brande, who had been crying, deliberately wiped her eyes, and
threw both her arms round his neck and kissed him. It was no mere
playful threat this time! The dirzee, who had just arrived, and was
slowly unfolding his mat, could hardly believe his senses. He told the
scandal in the bazaar that evening, and was laughed to scorn for his
pains!
The young couple, closely followed by syce and pony, walked slowly to
the gate; ay, and up the road.
“I little thought how I should next see you, and what I should have to
tell you, when we last parted at this very gate,” he said at last.
“You are giving up a fortune and great prospects, I know, Mark, because
you find your duty lies out here; you are giving up the world and
going into banishment. But, Mark, I prepare you, that I am going to
say something”--with a catch of her breath--“that may lower me in
your eyes; still I will venture. Surely you need not give up _me_.
Please”--speaking forcibly--“hear my reasons. I am accustomed to a very
quiet life at home. I was brought up in poverty; I shall make a capital
poor man’s wife. You say your father’s affairs are in a fearful muddle,
and that he has but an annuity. I can nurse him, read to him, walk out
with him, and amuse him; I will be very good to your father. I don’t
want society, or new dresses, or anything, or any one--but you, Mark.
I know that I am shamefully bold and unmaidenly--it would kill Mrs.
Grundy to hear me--but I believe you think that I shall mind your dull,
lonely jungle life; that I shrink from poverty. You are quite mistaken;
I shall enjoy it with you. Do not say ‘No,’ Mark, even if we must wait.
I am ready to wait--ten, twenty years--thirty years,” concluded this
reckless young woman.
She was waiting now for his answer, white and trembling from the force
of her own emotion.
“Honor, I know you will pity me,” he began at last, “pity me, when I
tell you that I must say ‘No.’ I must face this life alone. God bless
you, and give you a double share of happiness--your own, and what might
have been mine. I have lately learnt something”--and his pale face grew
ashy grey--“that will prevent my ever calling any woman ‘wife.’ The
sacrifice I am bound to make is bitter; yes, bitter as death. I am not
going to sacrifice you; you must forget me, darling. You have all your
young life before you; put me out of your mind--gradually, sorrowfully,
tenderly--as if I was dead.”
“I shall never do that, Mark. Tell me; may I write to you?”
“No!” was the most unexpected and chilling reply.
“But yes, as your sister?” she pleaded, boldly.
He shook his head.
“I could never come to think of you as my sister.”
“At least you will give me your address? Once, we were to have spent
our lives together; now, I may not even know where I am to think of you
as spending yours.”
“You had much better not think of me at all,” he answered, with a
tremor in his voice.
“I must, and I shall. Be quick and tell me.”
“My father calls himself Mr. Jones; he lives beyond Hawal Ghât, about
forty miles away, and I must be with him before dark. By-the-by, I have
kept your fan; it may seem an odd notion, but you will understand. And
now I must go.”
Hearing the sound of clattering hoofs and gay laughing voices rapidly
approaching, he held her hand in his but for one second and dropped it.
Then the syce hurrying forward with the pony, he mounted and galloped
off. No--he never looked back.
Honor stood for a moment as in a sort of trance; then she turned and
leaned against the palings, which bordered a pine-forest sloping to the
road. The gay riding party cantering past, rather wondered to see Miss
Gordon without her hat, evidently looking for something in the wood.
They had no time to stop and ask her what it was that she had lost?
They would have been rather astonished if they could have learnt the
truth--that she had just that moment lost her lover,--and for ever.
They might have guessed at a tragedy of the kind, had they seen her
white set face, and the expression of the clenched hands that grasped
the palings. But they did not see, nor did they suspect any connection
between Miss Gordon looking into a wood, and a momentary vision of a
young fellow on a bay pony, who had flashed up a side path, before they
could identify either man or beast.
Honor, with a perfectly colourless face, walked up to her aunt, who was
still softly sobbing in the drawing-room, and leaning her hand upon
her shoulder, said in a strange emotionless voice--
“It is all over, auntie. We have said good-bye for ever.”
She stooped and kissed her, and went and shut herself up in her own
room, from which she did not emerge for several hours; and then the
girl who did appear was a different Honor Gordon.